4 Folk, Walking the Dogs

January 22nd 2018

Bbbrrr, yep its cold, frosty cars add 10 minutes to commute time and longer if I can’t find the scraper, seems i’m in the habit of using my credit card or business id card or a cd or something. The window ice scrapers always come out in the spring time when the threat of freezing has all but melted away. For now i’ll struggle haphazardly like I always do and like many folk do I’m sure and are probably too proud to say so.

The moon was high in the sky as we waited for the school bus this morning, the blood red moon or what ever it was called that was meant to happen yesterday or the day before didn’t work as the sky was full of clouds at 3am and then at 4am and then at 5am. I didn’t sleep because I was worried not that the sky would fall on my head but that I would miss out on a momentous spectacle which won’t be seen for another couple of decades or more, I can’t remember but the fear of loss was in me as I went to bed and thus kept waking me up. I always miss these kind of early morning events and wish I gave more of a shit, but when it comes to the crunch I’m just so tired all the time and invariably the bed is too cosy to get up and so on and so on…

There is a new edition to the woods today; as N was the only one with climbing footwear on, his trainers, we sent him up the tree to deposit the little fella in a nice little nook, with the sky behind he cuts a fine silhouette, I’ll post a photo when I get my telephoto lens out (not a euphemism), which may happen sooner rather than later, I’d like to try and take some shots of high action. Speaking of action I noticed a “Christians in Action” leaflet in the local Rogue-run Farm shop, I’m hoping they’re a motorbike display team and jump through hoops of fire whilst forming a pyramid; I’d go to see that, otherwise I’m not bothered.

Around this time last year I wrote about the “Little Voices” Concert at the NEC in Brum. It’s an enormously deafening collection of, today, 6501 primary school children singing songs from the Charts (what the hell are they) and popular musical films, of which there are a worrying amount these days, they seem to be gathering pace. Might I suggest that the more feel good musical films there are around in the world at any one time the shitter life in the world is at that particular moment, I call it “Le Paradox Miserable” after the film, play, book, dramatisation. Incidentally the dramatisation is my favourite Les Mis; there is no singing, just a generic moody cinematic soundtrack. Tonights epic finale was a jive bunny style mega mix of music from, you guessed it, The Greatest Showman” with a recorded message from Hugh Jackman. The kids love it, and somehow seeing the kids bouncing up and down in their school groups is a lovely thing to behold. Once again there is a brief interlude of forced fun for the parents who are forced to stand up and do dance actions, directed by a loud dancing man called Andy, with a really energetic group of dancing men and women at his flank, he’s the greatest dancer I kid you not, and his choice of chart (what’s that) buster tunes which even the most closeted adult with no interests outside of worm farms would have heard. Its like he’s saying to us, and he’s younger than most I suspect,

“Here you are, here’s some music for you, this is what all your generation listen to, we listen to Grime but you don’t understand that because culture didn’t exist before our generation turned up.”

I would ask him, “Do you like Grime Andy?”

He would reply “Yes, yes I do”

I’d then say, “Wrong, that is not the correct answer” and walk off leaving him to his dancing in shopping precincts with his energetic friends.

How dare he suppose I like the shit he spoon feeds me; today I ranted at a radio on a building site, Mellow FM was playing some utter generic drivel, Jennifer Rush I think, haven’t we moved on as a species, isn’t it in our genetic make up to question mediocrity? We shouldn’t have to stand for this laziness, this kindergarten radio, turn it off and tell people if you don’t like it. People don’t stand for littering so why should they stand for The Lighthouse Family. We middle agers need to become more musically militant, don’t let your Mojo fade away: Keep on Keeping on!

Anyway I think the post I wrote about a year ago about Little Voices is still in the blog, but I haven’t found it yet. It’s probably much the same as this one. A real positive to emerge recently was my son telling both Mrs T and myself separately that he doesn’t like grime, the music not the dirt, although I’ve got to be honest I’m not a big fan of the dirt either.

This is what 6501 primary school kids look like in Panorama; you can only imagine the noise, deafening especially when some X-Factor semi finalist stepped onto the stage to peddle one of her toxic vocoded ballads. Tony Hadley from Spandau Ballet also did a turn and sang “Gold”, he’s still got it, “that were proper music that were” Look I’m rambling I’d better…